Audio Tabs

Transcript of interview with members of the Birmingham Sunlights

Jo Reed: Looking back, are there some performances that you remember especially?

Steve Taylor: to me, one of the first ones was the- the one that we did- that we did in Dayton, Ohio. Uh... now, mind you, that we- we were singin' for the Church of Christ who uh.. a very starched set of people who just sit up and very seldom do they clap their hands.

Barry Taylor: That's right.

Steve Taylor: And these people, some of the ladies were fainting. They started shouting. It was as though we were in a Baptist church.

Barry Taylor: That's right.

Steve Taylor: I said, "Man, did you see that?" I said, "The rest of the United States knew that these people up here were shouting and- and they'd kick 'em out of the brotherhood."

Barry Taylor: Absolutely right.

Steve Taylor: So I felt that, if we could get the Church of Christ people that excited where they could just let themselves loose and enjoy themselves and be happy, that we had somethin' that that was very, very special. Why keep it within this circle right here when we can give it to everybody? To let everybody enjoy it?

James Taylor: And I'll tell you something about that particular concert. We did something that night that we haven't done since. We ended our show by leaving the stage and walking through the auditorium out to the back, to the back of the auditorium and we were singing and walking towards the back and I looked back and there was about 100 people coming down the aisles right behind us singing. Singing the same song. Singing along with us. That was exciting. You know you've got your step that you're using, it kinda threw me off because I heard all these voices and I thought they were still sitting in their seats and, when I looked around and saw that they were coming down the aisle behind us I got off my step a little bit but it only took me a fraction of a second to get back on it. And that concert we did in Memphis, Tennessee, we did seven songs, got five standing ovations. Rufus Thomas came up and gave us a special thanks. There were- several others there that came up and because they hadn't heard that good old- good old fashioned uh... a capella, southern gospel. He said he hadn't heard it in so many years and how refreshed he was. It uplifted our spirits.